Thursday, January 12, 2017

2017 Crafting Goals and a Birthday Giveaway!

Hello and Happy New Year!

I hope you have had a wonderful start to the year so far!  Life in my parts has been chaotic as usual and I'm still trying to gain momentum and normalcy since the holiday's.  Hopefully now that the kids are back into school, the decorations are down, and the house is back in order I can get back to my crafting!

I love how turning the calendar over to January always gives me a new opportunity to set a few goals for the upcoming year.  This year I'm focusing on a few key things (crafty related) that I thought I would share with you here on the blog.

Creativity

This past year I felt an overwhelming sense of creative burnout.  I found it hard to balance my home life with my creative process...which affected my creative output...which affected my creative sharing.  I love to sit and create but sometimes it felt like a chore to photograph, edit, write, and post about my creativity.  For 2017 I want to pace myself and keep in the forefront of my mind that its not a race and to only post content that I really love and am proud of.  I've often felt an intense pressure to "keep up" with other bloggers who post 5+ times a week but I've come to the realization that that just can't be my life right now and I'm okay with that!

Memory Keeping from the Past 10+ years

I set a goal for myself in the beginning of 2016 to sort, organize, and document our family photos.  I even went through the motions of sorting the photos on my computer by year, printing them, and sorting them into year dated folders...then nothing.  Over 10 years of photos and memorabilia have eaten up valuable desk space in my office for a year now.  My hope was if I kept it out in visible view it would be motivation to get it done.  When I think back now, I have good reason to believe that my creativity burnout was a direct result of looking at THIS for the past 12 months (and this isn't even all of it!).


I honestly think I haven't tackled this project sooner simply because I don't know where to start.  I have bought all the albums I am going to need, a few mini Project Life kits along with a few larger core kits, even embellishments, but I can't seem to get going.  I've never had an interest in traditional scrap booking and I just couldn't get past how I was going to get all these photos albums PLUS be creative about it!  In no uncertain terms I've become a "Scrapbook Faker" (you can see a Becky Higgins video on this subject HERE - trust me its worth a watch!).

Back in November of 2016 I stumbled across Ali Edwards ( I know I've been living under a rock, right?) and fell in love with the concept of December Daily.  I jumped in whole heart-idly and documented each day in December 2016 with journaling, embellishments, and photographs...and you know what? I LOVED it!  There was nothing hard about it and I realized that this was exactly what was sitting in all those boxes on the edge of my desk.  Simply stories that needed to be told.  This is the year they will finally be told.  I hope to share my progress as I begin working on the albums. I'll be sharing a flip through of my December Daily album next week when I get my photos taken.


Baby Memory Keeping Books

Just like the rest of my memory keeping, my boys baby books took a back seat to everything else. These are probably the #1 spot projects I want to finish this year.  My oldest is 7, my youngest 5, and I'm worried that if I don't get them done soon all those wonderful memories that I swore I'd always remember will fade away.  In the early fall I purchased the Project Life Baby Boy Digital Edition Core kit and started slowly assembling the albums.  Over Christmas I worked quite a bit on them and made a good amount of progress.  I haven't decided if I'll create process share posts or just the finished products yet - let me know in the comments which you'd be more interested in seeing.

If you're curious about how I made the album labels I followed a tutorial I found on Becky Higgins.com


One Little Word

I am so thankful that I stumbled on this class by Ali Edwards and I really feel it is going to be life changing for me this year. Sometimes things find you when your not even looking for them and this project is most definitely it for me in the here and now.  The basis of the class is to choose a word to guide you throughout the upcoming year and see where it takes you and how you can learn from it. For my first year with this project I chose the word CHOOSE.  I'll share more about my January prompts and how I've set up my album (6" x 8") in an upcoming post.  The photo below is a couple of the inserts I used to start my album.  I can't wait to see where my word takes me this year!  If you're new to One Little Word or would just like to see what it's all about you can watch Ali's video HERE.


Whew, are you still reading?  That was a lot of info and insight but I really felt the need to type it out, if only to keep myself accountable to my goal setting.  In addition to everything I've talked about above I still plan to post as many tutorials, tips, and tricks as I can, along with keeping up on a monthly newsletter for my subscribers.  I'm also planning to get my Etsy shop up and running again this year too so be on the lookout for that!

And after all that, did I happen to mention that TODAY is my birthday??  I thought it might be a great way to celebrate and start off the New Year with a little giveaway!  I went through my stack of cards and chose 4 of my favorite All Occasion cards to give away to one lucky reader!  Simply follow the entry rules below - the giveaway is open Internationally from today until Monday January 16th at midnight.  Good Luck!




a Rafflecopter giveaway

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14 comments:

Golden Goddess Designs said...

Happy Birthday! thanks for the giveaway! and those are some great goals for 2017!! good luck! I am glad you found a system that is working for you!

Alicia

LynnsLocker said...

Happy Birthday!!! Thanks for the great tips and goals! Thanks for sharing your awesome cards with us!!!

stampingvickisvisions said...

Happy birthday! Love all your creativity look forward to seeing when you post! One of the things I like most about this stamping business is that we each can make IT fit in our lives. Thanks

Carol said...

Happy Birthday! My son would love the beach/ocean scenes as he lives near the beach...and...I have no beach stamps! May need to change that. Also, I hope you get the baby books finished. Mine are way behind...I hesitate to say how far behind. Best of luck and I look forward to seeing your creativity. Thanks for the chance to win.

Susan's Craft Room said...

Happy Birthday! I love your blog posts no matter for frequent they are. Just keep doing what you can work in. If you have time to post a few of your pages, I'd love to see them! Your children will grow up before you know it. Now is the time to spend with them. Definitely start with the baby albums. My girls are 27 and 29 and I've yet to do them. I have some notes, but definitely don't remember a lot of the details. I did put my photos in order as I printed them. I wish they had CD's way back then. I'd just do it on digital now to get it done. Now I'll be happy to just have the photos in an album.

Stella said...

Happy belated Birthday! Like you, I'd love to get caught up on my son's baby album (he's now 32yo). The items are organized and ready to transfer from the yucky old sticky album pages to a better type album - I just need to get it done. Thanks for the chance to win a few of your gorgeous cards.

Melanie said...

I want to be able to effectively 'brand' myself and get my Etsy off the ground. I have found new passions in my arts and I am looking forward to being able to justify the time/money I spend by making some money and sharing my creations with others! I would love to turn my passion into my career.

Melissa Banbury said...

Thanks Alicia!

Melissa Banbury said...

Thank you Lynn!

Melissa Banbury said...

Thanks Vicki! It's so encouraging to be in this space where everyone is positive and supportive!

Melissa Banbury said...

Thanks for stopping by Carol! Maybe we can encourage each other to reach our goals together this year!

Melissa Banbury said...

Thank you for the encouragement Susan! I wish you luck getting your albums done too!

Melissa Banbury said...

Thank you Stella! I took many photos from husbands and my childhood out of those sticky albums too. It was a huge chore but I was thankful not too many were ruined. Good Luck with your albums!

Melissa Banbury said...

Best of luck Melanie! I wish for much the same things - if you don't mind please let me know your Etsy store name. I'd love to follow you and check out your craftiness!

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